Kelly Slater, 9.57 at Backdoor, Hawaii

Yesterday, Joel Parkinson won the Billabong Pipeline Masters and the 2012 ASP World Title. But, it very, very easily could have been Kelly Slater, pictured here, in that position. If he’d taken the momentum from round five and the quarters into his semifinal against Josh Kerr, things might’ve been different. But he didn’t, and things went the other way. In his round five heat against Miguel Pupo, Kelly posted a 9.70 and a 9.57. This is a sequence of the latter. Does the second place mean that, even if Kelly was secretly planning to retire, that he’ll now do tour again next year just to try and win again and go out on a high note? Or, is the over-analysis futile? Kelly probably don’t even know himself. Come March, at Snapper Rocks, we’ll know.

“I missed Brazil because I had a cut in my heel and couldn’t really turn,” Kelly said, reflecting on his year. “I figured I’d just rest up and get focused. Probably the one that hurt the worst was Teahupo’o. I made two or three mistakes in a row and Ricardo got a 9.8 with seven seconds left. I had a bad string over the last few months. It kind of fell apart after France. Portugal was a tough one and Santa Cruz, I was just real wobbly.

“For whatever reason, the momentum went in Parko’s direction. It was cool that it came down to this, it would have been cooler to have it come down to the Final. Joel’s been on tour for 10 or 11 years now and been in the hunt ever since he started. He’s an amazing surfer. He’s just the guy that makes it look easy. He can pull whatever our when he needs to.”